Cultural Identity Politics in the (Post-)Transitional Societies

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Cultural Identity Politics in the (Post-)Transitional Societies art and culture and the history, economics or politics of these geographical points. Another thing clear in the text is that this “[collectivist] space is not contaminated by ideology and capital” (WHW, 2005: 16). One of the main ideological problems is that the collective is discussed using terms referring to experience, rather than to social and political emancipation. “Social struggle”, “conflict”, “society” and “political” always accompany the collective’s real driving forces such as individuality, play or creation. Nevertheless, as WHW state, “experiences of collectivity are imposed as crucial transformation forces of individual and society” (WHW, 2005: 15). In this case, where society has been stripped of its production aspect, the individual becomes the dominator of the collectivity experience. This individualism, as WHW explain, does not diminish in this collectivist experience, “rather it is only within them that we can imagine the realization of our potentialities” (WHW, 2005: 14-15). In this case, WHW suspended the productivity aspect of the collective (by not mentioning it at all) with “creativity” as the main indicator of the collectivist experience. They also managed in this valorization of collective experience to guarantee the autonomy of the artist as subject, an individual who constitutes his/herself in this experience. Ljiljana Filipović’s essay, “Breakdown of Collective”, which appeared in the catalogue of the WHW exhibition, is even more explicit in the emancipation of collectivist experience solely through creative terms. Apart from defining this emancipation in most conservative psychological terminology, such as “the collective creation becomes the flight of fear from death” (Filipović, 2005: 106), “the isolation imposed by prohibition actually paradoxically stimulates collective creativity” or “the collective unconscious always leads us to those who create the collective” (Filipović, 2005: 108), Filipović offers an explanation for the frequent breakdowns of collectives. Even though she is silent about it, it is for us, the readers, to understand that this broken collective is in fact the collective of socialist Yugoslavia. In this metaphorical article a proposed explanation of what keeps a collective together is tolerance and experience of the “other” inside the group’s creativity. In order to fight these destructive (“death drive”) forces inside the collective, Filipović proposes an alternative which, when considering most of the contemporary artistic alternatives mentioned in this article, does not sound so different: “creative inner forces could perhaps be the only ones to transform such a situation if collectivism would be understood as a vision of transitional utopia” (Filipović, 2005: 110). With these complementary examples I have tried to show that it is possible to arrive at the same conclusion as Breznik as to the identity problems of the authors and artists facing the contradictions between the productive forces and the relations of production. By emphasizing the issue of “collectives” and their discourse I have managed to explain this contradiction even further by showing the complete transformation of the conceptualization of the object in this discourse of transition. It is a necessary task for the future to carry out more rigid theoretical observations of this shift in conceptualization together with strict empirical observation and this could offer us more concrete analyses of the situation. 146
From productivity to creativity - the role of art collectives in solving the contradictions... References Bakal, B. (2006) “Recognizing Networks”, in Klingan, K. and Kappert, I.(eds) Leap into the City: Cultural Positions, Political Conditions. Seven Scenes from Europe, Cologne: Du Mont Literatur und Kunst Verlag. Breznik, M. (2009) “The Field of Cultural Production in the Sphere of Visual Arts”, Maska, Vol. 24, No. 121-122/2009, pp. 64-79. Breznik, M. (2011) “Cultural Identities from the Bottom Up”, draft paper, international conference Questioning Transitional Dynamics in Re-defining Cultural Identities in SEE, Ljubljana, 14–16 January 2011, accessed on http://rci.mirovni-institut.si/Docs/ ASO%202010%20Breznik%20tekst.pdf Filipović, L. (2005) “Breakdown of the Collective”, in WHW (ed.) Collective Creativity: Common Ideas for Life and Politics, Kassel: Kunsterhaus Fredericianum. Misiano, V. (2003) “The Institutionalization of Friendship”, in Arns, I. (ed.) Irwin: Retropricip, Frankfurt am Main: Revolver – Archiv fur aktuelle Kunst. What, How & for Whom/WHW (2005) “Introduction”, in WHW (ed.) Collective Creativity: Common Ideas for Life and Politics, Kassel: Kunsterhaus Fredericianum. Wu, C. (2002) Privatising Culture: corporate art interventions since the 1980s, London & New York: Verso. 147
Page 1 and 2:
Cultural Transitions in Southeaster
Page 3 and 4:
Page 5 and 6:
Page 7 and 8:
C o n t e n t s Foreword . . . . .
Page 9:
FOREWORD
Page 12 and 13:
Cultural Identity Politics in the (
Page 14 and 15:
Page 17:
PART ONE Histories, memories and na
Page 20 and 21:
Page 22 and 23:
Page 24 and 25:
Page 26 and 27:
Page 28 and 29:
Page 30 and 31:
Page 32 and 33:
Page 34 and 35:
Page 36 and 37:
Page 38 and 39:
Page 40 and 41:
Page 42 and 43:
Page 44 and 45:
Page 46 and 47:
Page 48 and 49:
Page 50 and 51:
Page 52 and 53:
Page 54 and 55:
Page 56 and 57:
Page 58 and 59:
Page 60 and 61:
Page 62 and 63:
Page 64 and 65:
Page 66 and 67:
Page 69 and 70:
Culture of trauma and identity poli
Page 71 and 72:
Page 73 and 74:
Page 75 and 76:
References Culture of trauma and id
Page 77:
PART TWO Communication, media and c
Page 80 and 81:
Page 82 and 83:
Page 84 and 85:
Page 86 and 87:
Page 88 and 89:
Page 90 and 91:
Page 92 and 93:
Page 94 and 95:
Page 96 and 97:
Page 98 and 99:
Page 100 and 101:
Page 102 and 103:
Page 104 and 105: Cultural Identity Politics in the (
Page 109 and 110: How modern technology shape-shifts
Page 121 and 122: Cultural identities in Southeastern
Page 131: Cultural identities in Southeastern
Page 135 and 136: Cultural identities from the bottom
Page 149 and 150: From productivity to creativity - t
Page 151 and 152: From productivity to creativity - t
Page 153: From productivity to creativity - t
Page 171 and 172: Repetition of difference - the sear
Page 173 and 174: Repetition of difference - the sear
Page 175 and 176: Report on the conference “Questio
Page 177 and 178: Report on the conference Peace Inst
Page 179: Report on the conference of ‘inde
Page 183 and 184: Notes on the authors PAŠKO BILIĆ
Page 185 and 186: Notes on the authors ANDREA KOMLOSY
Page 187 and 188: Culturelink Joint Publications Seri
show all

Cultural Identity Politics in the (Post-)Transitional Societies

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?